COPS was one of the first reality-based shows on television and became an immediate success. I chose to analyze it because I find it interesting how we are fascinated at seeing criminals caught and captured in “real” life. COPS portrays police officers as “better” and “above” the supposed criminals. The officers are portrayed as the big heroes who save the day (or night). The show tracks a team of police officers who are always on the hunt for crime and dumb criminals. The editing is done in such a way that the suspects are exposed as idiotic and stupid.
The main premise of the show consists of a camera crew following a group of police officers as they answer calls of crimes occurring. We immediately become drawn in because of the real life aspect of it. We want to watch “real people” getting caught in the act. In one particular episode, an officer is in hot pursuit of a man in a Jeep Wrangler. The car speeds up and the man jumps out. Four officers tackle the obviously inebriated and incompetent man to the ground and handcuff him. In my opinion, they do this for the camera to make it more entertaining for us to watch. Normal television viewers such as myself enjoy physical action and we get caught up in the “raw footage” of the police officers seizing this man.
Even if you only see one episode of COPS, you more than likely will be biased to the side of the police officers. They are almost always depicted as doing “good” and being “nice”. In truth, we know there are many cops out there who are corrupt and evil. We will never see that of course since this is a television show. There is so much debate on whether reality television is actually real. To some extent it is, but there is always that bias. Just like when a reporter writes a story; we think it’s objective but in actuality it’s not. It never is. Because of the show’s directors, producers, and editors, the police officers that appear on every episode are characterized as genuinely nice fellows. In one scene, one officer went to investigate a domestic call from two elderly women. One of them was almost hysterical about the water spewing from their ceiling. Apparently, the neighbor’s plumbing was in shambles and it caused leakage into the other apartments. The police officer at the scene played the good samaritan by telling the neighbor how to fix the plumbing and to notify the landlord. Afterwards, while driving his police car, the officer remarks the horrible conditions they live and it’s sad people have to live like that. In conclusion, we see him as an extremely caring man.
COPS skews our opinions of suspects and criminals. If I based my judgment alone from watching the show, I would think that all criminals and suspects are brainless and lack common sense. Even the theme song, “...bad boys bad boys...”, points the finger and labels them as “bad”. The episode of the man bailing from the Jeep supplies a good example of this. The car was stolen and the cop asks him where he got it. The man blatantly lies by saying he doesn’t know what they’re talking about. Does he not realize it is all caught on tape? I immediately had no remorse for him, even after they unnecessarily and brutally threw him on the ground. The people that appear on the show have to sign releases. So this man wanted to be on television, even though he lied and made himself look really stupid. He may not be stupid, in fact, I just think this because of the footage I have seen of him. Just the fact that they don’t show smart, intelligent people on COPS makes it biased to characterize criminals and suspects as stereotypical “bumbling idiots”. In turn, we perceive these cops as heroic for capturing and apprehending these people.
COPS is not a show to “expose the criminal justice system”. As I noted before, there is no such thing as objectivity. It uses camera and editing techniques to draw us in and basically entertain us. We see the cops as inherently good people and the suspects and criminals as idiots. This is not because all suspects and criminals are dumb, but because the producers only chose to show what scenes they wanted us to view.
